


Mirror test

by towardsmorning



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Identity Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-09
Updated: 2011-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-21 04:31:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towardsmorning/pseuds/towardsmorning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Before, it was survival. Now, it's joy, and Raven can feel herself following that path too, from a scared little girl to something new and fearless."</p><p>Shapeshifting means different things to Raven at different times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror test

When Raven is young, living at the mansion with Charles, shapeshifting is a game. Now that she finally has somebody who doesn't flinch and look away whenever she does it, suddenly Raven finds that she enjoys it. She may not be able to fool Charles like she can everyone else, but he's the exception rather than the rule, and it becomes one of her favourite activities to walk down a street with somebody else's body draped over her, confident that nobody else has a clue as to what's going on. It makes her feel like she's carrying the secret inside her like a little candle, for nobody but her. Not even Charles- he may be in on it, but he'll never know just how it feels to walk like that, not after she made him promise to stay out of her mind.

Before, it was survival. Now, it's joy, and Raven can feel herself following that path too, from a scared little girl to something new and fearless. The candle gets brighter every day, and Raven feels a little warmer to match, smiles wider, feels _better._

*

Later, Charles goes to university and Raven follows. She doesn't like to admit it and would probably lie if anybody thought to ask (which, she notes, Charles doesn't), but the thought of being alone again after so long scares her. Experience has taught Raven that she could do it, could find ways to survive as easily as she had done before, but to be alone again would be painful.

But now he has _peers_ and it would be entirely inappropriate for him to know more than just the one of her, so he insists she settle on a single form. It's a pretty body, with more or less her own face put on top because if this is going to work long-term she supposes continuity is a good idea. Pale, blonde, long hair, assembled out of pieces taken from one person here, another there. Just pretty enough that she doesn't feel bad, because she spends _enough_ time feeling bad, just indistinct enough to avoid prolonged attention; Charles wouldn't understand that, but Raven hasn't forgotten _all_ the lessons being alone taught her. Not yet, and maybe they won't ever leave, not really.

 _Perfect_ , she tells herself as she looks in the mirror, and repeats it over and over when she realises that she doesn't believe it. The word starts to lose its meaning in that way words do. Raven keeps trying anyway.

It's strange for a long time. Before she had been one person, with a hundred disguises to put on. Now she spends so much time in just one of those disguises that the split starts to be more pronounced and real. There is Raven at work, forcing brittle smiles for customers as she takes their orders and bracing herself against stubborn rain as she walks home. There is Raven _at_ home, avoiding yellow eyes in the mirror and falling asleep to the sound of Charles' voice. Neither of them really intersect. Neither of them has much time in their lives for joy now.

 _Looking like this,_ she asks Charles, because he doesn't think of her _like this_ any more and needs reminding. He doesn't think of her as that child playing at being an adult in his kitchen now. Raven-at-home isn't the Raven he thinks of, even though it's the Raven he sees the most. It scares her. On the one hand at least he doesn't still think of her as just that, a child.

On the other hand, she wonders if he'd like that Raven to disappear entirely, even when nobody else is around to see. Because Raven doesn't think she can do that, and suddenly she's scared he'll find out.

*

The CIA think of Raven's body first as a threat, and then as a tool.

On the one hand, she loves the feeling of being around so many other people _like her_ , people who are her age and speak her language. The difference between her and Charles has always felt more pronounced than it really is, and although she feels a little bad thinking of it, not having anyone else's company was starting to drive her up the wall.

But even while being surrounded by so many others starts to make her feel _normal_ for the first time, she has to answer question after question about what she can do, can she do _this,_ can she do _that_ , and sometimes it's all she can do not to just storm out. There's a feeling she gets after a while, a nagging urge to explain herself when they ask about something to make sure they understand, and she hates it.

Raven won't explain herself to them. Charles hints that he wishes she would be more cooperative, that they would trust her more, but she ignores him with the kind of polite vacancy he never thinks to question.

*

After Erik kisses her, he makes it clear that nothing else is going to happen. She leaves before he has to say it aloud.

The first thing she does, halfway down the hall to her room, is shapeshift into some clothes, and Raven is suddenly grateful Erik doesn't have Charles' powers and won't know. For a moment she tries hard to want to shift back into the nude, tells herself that she is too stunning for clothes, but the clothes stay on stubbornly until she reaches her room and shuts the door.

Raven slept in this room as a child. When she looks around, she can see little details of things that remind her of the first time she stayed here. There's a blurry photo of her and Charles from just before they left for Oxford. When she looks at it, she has no idea who the woman in the photo is, but Raven's smile on her face looks just a touch strange. There are clothes that are far too small folded in the drawer, clothes that were mostly for show even at the time but which it would have been a waste to get rid of.

 _I am free,_ she tells herself, and slowly her clothes melt away. It doesn't feel true, but if she repeats it enough then it will. She will make it true, and make it _hers_ , and some part of her mind hopes that once that happens the voice will stop sounding like Erik and start sounding like her own.

*

It seems at first as though what happened on the beach will mean that she can draw a line, quick and sharp, in her life. Before and after. Raven and Mystique.

Only a few weeks later, she realises that isn't as true as she'd thought it would be. It's small things, like waking up after a nightmare and getting halfway out of bed before she realises Charles isn't there to complain at, or taking a second longer than she should whenever somebody calls her by her new name.

If Erik notices, he doesn't say. Emma does, and Mystique tries to ignore the cold little bundle of dread that she feels in the pit of her stomach whenever she sees Emma smirk about that fact. Angel shoots her the odd sympathetic glance, and Mystique always thinks, _she must have done this too, I should ask her how she made it work_ , but Mystique never quite asks and Angel never offers.

 _I am Mystique,_ she thinks at night, and tries to make her body fill the gaps she can't quite fill in that name. _I am beautiful,_ she thinks, and even if she doesn't believe it yet she will soon, if only because it's either that or not be anyone at all.

**Author's Note:**

> The mirror test is a test used to determine self-awareness in animals- if the animal recognises its reflection, then it's self-aware.


End file.
